


Polymorph Me a Little Time and Energy

by Mosspool13



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Coda Episode 87, Episode 87 Spoilers, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Polymorph Spell, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-06
Updated: 2019-12-06
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:41:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21693229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mosspool13/pseuds/Mosspool13
Summary: Sometimes it's just easier not to be yourself for a little while.[Alternatively, Caleb polymorphs]
Relationships: The Mighty Nein & Caleb Widogast
Comments: 10
Kudos: 187





	Polymorph Me a Little Time and Energy

The moment they are in the Inn, Caleb disappears upstairs.

He hasn't said a single word since Ikithon...

Jester moves to go after him, but Caduceus takes her by the hand and stops her. "I think he needs some time by himself." He tells her, solemnly. 

"No!" Jester protests, her expression twisted with worry and concern. "He needs, he needs to be with us! He needs--"

She pulls her hand away and turns to continue up when a creature darts down the stairs, nearly colliding with her legs. It is a bobcat-like creature with ginger fur; it could almost be mistaken for Frumpkin aside from its ears and its size. It makes a beeline for Nott, who screeches and rears back as it barrels into her. She flails, trying simultaneously to catch it and not to catch it, but it manages to knock her over and curl up against her chest with a mournful sound. 

Fjord sneezes. 

"Oh my god! What is it!?" Nott yells, scrabbling at the floor, but as Beau and Yasha hover over her to get it off, the three of them get a look at its eyes. 

They are a vibrant, electric blue, blinking up at them and then burrowing in close to Nott's belly. 

"Oh, Caleb." Nott whispers, and stops struggling, instead wrapping her arms around as much of the bobcat as she can. It makes a tiny, tight noise, and doesn't move. 

Fjord gingerly wipes at his nose, hovering over them too, but within a clear distance. "Is it Frumpkin?"

"I don't think so." Beau comments, staring at the bobcat curled up on top of Nott. "Never seen him look like that before. Not to say he _can't_ exactly but..."

"I don't think so either." Caduceus says, wandering over with Jester, who rushes over and kneels beside Nott. His expression is kind and a little sad. "But he is our friend all the same." 

Nott speaks up, as she rubs down the bobcat's flank. "I think it's Caleb." 

The Nein glance at each other, and then at the patrons around the room. A few are giving them curious looks, some even outright scowls, a few are keeping their berth, eyeing the bobcat with trepidation. The manager of the inn has a cross look on his face where he stares at them from behind the counter. 

"Perhaps we should move ourselves to our accommodations." Fjord suggests, sniffling a little and trying to clear up his suddenly blocked-up nose. 

Nott tries to lift the cat, but it is much too heavy for her size. The cat is nearly as big as she is. Jester tries to help, but the cat hisses at her, to her surprise and concern, before burrowing closer into Nott. 

"Damn." Beau comments. 

"Are we sure that thing is Caleb?" Fjord comments, eyeing it warily. "It's not... feral or something, is it?" 

Nott glares at Fjord. "Of course it's Caleb, and it's not _feral_." She makes a soft noise as the bobcat nudges further into her side. "Hey, Caleb, I can't really lift you? And if you don't want Jester or anyone else touching you right now, then I'm gonna need your help." 

The bobcat mewls, but its a cough of a sound, much too low to be a regular cat, or to be the familiar mrrph of Frumpkin's voice. The cat lifts off of Nott, but doesn't go far, pressing into her side and leaning into her hand on its back as the Nein head upstairs to their rooms. 

They were given three rooms, according to Martinet Ludanis, and the Nein hadn't yet decided who would be rooming with who. Although the normal arrangements they were used to came to mind, with Yasha returned to them, they were unsure where to proceed from there. 

They check each of the rooms, and no one is entirely surprised when they do not find Caleb in any of them. They do find Frumpkin, however, curled up amongst the covers of the room farthest from the stairs, however, and the cat makes a plaintive sound as they enter. 

"Well that settles that." Beau says, frowning and glancing at the bobcat that they are pretty sure now is Caleb. "It's gotta be him." 

"But why?" Yasha asks, as Nott bundles bobcat Caleb towards the bed where Frumpkin is lying. Frumpkin eyes the bobcat but doesn't otherwise move, and Nott settles in with the bobcat commandeering her legs, more or less lying on top of her. She makes a displeased sound, but doesn't try to escape. The others eye her awkwardly. 

"Maybe he thinks he can deal with it all better as an animal...?" Jester wonders aloud. "I mean, when I was a bat and a moth and a giant eagle and all the other animals, I didn't really have... worries or stuff? I mean, I still worried about you guys and wanted to help, but it was all kinda like... another me? Like it didn't really matter because I was, you know, a bat or something? And I just kinda wanted bread the whole time. I didn't really care about anything else, really." 

They watch the way bobcat Caleb stays close to Nott's side, making quiet, almost unintelligible, low sounds. Nott is staring up at the ceiling, something tender in her expression, as she runs her fingers through the scruff of the bobcat's fur. 

"We should all get our rest." Caduceus says, looking around at the rest of them. "And find ourselves some new clothes." The Nein only just now realize, staring at him and then down at themselves, that they are all covered in their own, and each other's, blood. The bone-deep tiredness hits them at once, and they feel a collective energy dissipate from the room. 

"Deuce, if you want to stay here in the room with Nott and Caleb." Fjord says, gingerly touching his side where he'd been cradling a wound from one of Obann the Punished's tentacle whips. "I don't mind. It'll save up some room for Yasha."

Yasha nods, shuffling a little awkwardly by her place near the door. 

Caduceus glances at her and then back at Fjord. Fjord's eyes flicker once to the bobcat, and then back to Caduceus. "Okay." He says, something knowing in his eyes and Fjord nods and he and Yasha leave for their own room. 

"You okay, Jessie?" Beau asks Jester, as Jester sighs and pulls at her dress skirt. 

"Yeah, I'm okay." She says, smiling up at Beau. Beau tentatively takes her by the crook of the elbow. "Let's go sleep." She says, and she and Jester leave for their own room. 

Caduceus takes the vacant bed across from Nott and the curled up Caleb and Frumpkin. "How are you feeling?" Caduceus asks her, as he begins his nightly ritual of getting his tea leaves together for some evening tea drinking and meditation. 

Nott doesn't take her hand off of Caleb's flank, but uses the other to show Caduceus a thumb's up. "I'm fine! I didn't get hurt too bad!" 

Caduceus eyes her a moment, and then reaches out a glowing hand and whispers a kind word for her. The healing takes instantly, and Nott shudders with the essence of Caduceus's healing word. "Oh, thanks, I guess." She says, nudging her face into Caleb's fur where he is lying atop her. 

"You're welcome." Caduceus says, and continues his routine. 

The night settles in around them, to the sound of Nott and Caduceus's combined snoring. Frumpkin has disappeared, perhaps wandered off to a quieter room, or hiding beneath the bed. Caleb is hunched against the wall beside Nott, no longer a bobcat, curled away from her as he stares at the wall in the shared room. He had turned back a little after Nott and Caduceus had both fallen asleep, thankfully, and he only had about one more spell left before he'd need a full night's rest again. 

But he didn't want to be himself right now, not at all, his thoughts were jumbled up, messy, disorganized, fighting between holding back his fear and his horror, and trying to compartmentalize what had happened, Trent's face in his mind's eye, the glint of superiority and the curl of amusement in the sharp grin he'd flashed Caleb's way as he called him "Bren." 

The only way he'd been able to escape the incessant thinking, to quiet his brain, was to become something else, a creature without the same intelligence that Caleb considered both a blessing and a curse. 

The bobcat was a relatively intelligent enough creature not to go crazy at the sight of the others, feral, as Fjord had said, or run off into the streets, and not smart enough to keep his thoughts from spiraling on an endless, damaging loop like they were now. 

He wanted to be it again. He wanted a different creature's mind, safer, dumber, less of himself to hate, and less of himself to think. 

A hand touched between his shoulder blades, across his dirty, still bloody coat. Caleb flinched instinctively, curling into himself, until he heard Nott's soft squeaky voice, ruffled with sleep. "Caleb? Are you yourself again?" 

He didn't say anything for a long moment; there was still too much in his head to make the words come out the way he wanted them to, to reassure Nott he was alright. It would be a lie. He was always lying. 

Nott shuffled a little closer, so that her knees touched the back of Caleb's. "It's okay. We're here. _I'm_ here." She said. Her voice was still too soft for her to be entirely lucid, entirely awake, slumber still on the cusp of taking her under. 

Caleb nodded without turning around and waited for Nott to slowly fall back into sleep. 

She did, after a while, and Caleb turned around to face her, catching sight of Caduceus's pink fur from across the room as the firbolg snored lightly in his sleep. He curled his hands into himself, took out his spellbook and breathed the incantation. 

His body morphed, lengthened, shrunk, fur sprouted across his skin, his nose got larger. He settled into the ginger bobcat again. 

_Soft. Home._ He thought. _Safe._

He nuzzled against Nott's shoulder. Nott mumbled in her sleep and turned over. 

One more hour not as himself, and then he'd deal with it all in the morning. 


End file.
